The FBI Thrillers Collection by Catherine Coulter Page B

dining room. Lily loved this room. When she’d moved in, she had painted it a light yellow and dumped all the heavy furniture. It was very modern now, with a glossy Italian Art Deco table, chairs, and sideboard. On the walls were five Art Deco posters, filled with color and high-living stylized characters. Tennyson was no sooner seated than Mrs. Scruggins began to serve. Normally, she simply left the food in the oven and went home, but not this evening.
    Tennyson said, “Good evening, Mrs. Scruggins. It’s very nice of you to stay.”
    “My pleasure, Dr. Frasier,” she said.
    Sherlock, who was watching her pile food onto Lily’s plate, knew that Mrs. Scruggins wasn’t about to leave unless she was booted out. “I couldn’t very well leave when Mrs. Frasier was coming home, now could I?”
    Savich nearly smiled. Mrs. Scruggins wanted to hear everything. She knew the air was hot, even if she didn’t know the reason, and would become hotter.
    Lily took a small bite of a homemade dinner roll that tasted divine. She said to her husband, “Oh yes, Tennyson, you’ll be pleased, I hope, to hear that I didn’t try to kill myself by running the Explorer into the redwood. Actually, neither the brakes nor the emergency brake worked. Since I was on that very gnarly part of 211, I didn’t stand a chance. Doesn’t that relieve your mind?”
    Tennyson was silent, frowning a bit over a forkful of lasagna, beautifully flavored, that was nearly to his mouth. He swallowed, then said slowly, his head cocked to the side, “You remembered, Lily?”
    “Yes, I remembered.”
    “Ah, then you mean that you changed your mind? But it was too late because then the brakes failed?”
    “That’s it exactly. I realized that I didn’t want to kill myself, but then it didn’t matter, since someone had evidently disabled the brakes.”
    “Someone? Come on, Lily, that’s absurd.”
    Savich said easily, “Unfortunately, the Explorer was compacted the very next day after the accident, so we can’t check it out to see if it is or isn’t absurd.”
    “Perhaps, Lily,” Tennyson said very gently, “just perhaps you’re wanting to remember something different, something that could alleviate the pain of the past seven months.”
    “I don’t think so, Tennyson. You see, I remembered while I was under hypnosis. And then when I came out of it, I remembered the rest of it, all by myself. All of it.”
    A thick eyebrow went straight up. Savich had never before seen an eyebrow do a vertical lift like that. Tennyson turned to Savich and spoke, his voice low and controlled, but it was obvious to everyone that he was very angry. “You’re telling me you took Lily to see a hypnotist? One of those charlatans who plant garbage in their patients’ minds?”
    “Oh, no,” Sherlock said, taking Lily’s clenched fist beneath the table. “This doctor didn’t plant anything, Tennyson. She simply helped Lily to remember what happened that evening. Both Dillon and I were there the whole time, and he and I are very familiar with hypnotists as part of our work. It was all on the up-and-up. Now, don’t you think it’s strange that the brakes didn’t work? Don’t you think it’s at least possible that someone disabled them from what Lily said?”
    “No, what I think is that Lily disremembers. I’m not sure if she’s doing it on purpose or if she’s simply confused and wants desperately for it to be this way. Don’t you see? She made up the brakes failing so she wouldn’t have to face up to what she did. I don’t think the brakes failed. I certainly don’t think anyone cut the lines. That’s beyond what is reasonable, and her saying that, claiming that that’s what happened, well, it really worries me. I don’t want Lily to even consider such a thing; it could make her lose ground again.
    “Listen, I’m a psychiatrist—a real one—one who doesn’t use hocus-pocus on people to achieve some sort of preordained result. I am not pleased